


Waiting To Fade

by voleuse



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-23
Updated: 2005-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>When you jumped instead of burned</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting To Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-series. Title and summary taken from _Love Poem_ by Lori Williams.

Kara wakes when the sunlight hits her eyelids.

Her neck hurts, her feet are cold, and she's sore in the most _interesting_ places.

Someone's stomach is under her arm, and from what she can sense, it's a male someone. She groans. "This seems familiar."

Then she takes a deep breath, and recognizes the scent. Leather, warmth, metal, and musk.

That smell, and the pleasant ache of the previous night's activities, are not two things that go together.

Kara opens her eyes with trepidation.

Lee blinks at her from across the pillow. "Hey."

"Hey," she manages, then rolls off the bed. "I think I'm going to be sick."

*

 

_It's one of those weeks where they're matched, point for point. If he does a maneuver that makes the instructors applaud, she pulls off a stunt that gets the entire mess hall to cheer for her. If she has a bunch of rook-wannabes hanging onto her every word, he steals their attention by deflating her story with a well-aimed barb. _

Finally, they meet up in a bar, maybe by coincidence. She orders a bottle of the house's worst and challenges him to meet her, shot for shot.

He does.

Everything's kind of blurry after that.

*

 

After briefly, unpleasantly, emptying her stomach's contents into the toilet in the adjoining bathroom, Kara rinses out her mouth.

She stares at herself in the mirror, eyeing the finger-shaped bruises on her hips, and hopes she drank something that causes hallucinations.

"Kara?" Lee's voice reaches her from the bedroom.

_Damn_. She keeps staring into the mirror.

There's a brief rustling, then Lee appears in the bathroom's doorway, a sheet wrapped low around his hips.

"Frak." Still naked, she lunges for a towel, cocooning herself as well as she can. "You could have knocked."

"The door's not closed," he points out.

"Oh. Right."

She looks at her toes and tries to think of a joke. Lee's feet shift in her peripheral vision, and she chuckles.

"Didn't think you were shy, Lee." She glances up at him, skipping carefully over the sheet.

He doesn't blush, but it looks like he's coming close to it. "Did we..." His voice trails into a question.

She brushes her hand against the now-obscured bruises on her hips, notes the lines of red decorating his arms. There's a bite-mark over Lee's collarbone, and she starts to reach, to touch it, then checks herself.

Instead, she crosses her arms, raises her eyebrows. "I'm sorry, have you not done this before?"

*

 

_It's well past midnight when they leave the bar. Rather, the bar closes, and they're left standing outside, laughing for the sake of making noise._

The days have been warm, but the night, they find, is cold, and by common consensus, they head toward Kara's apartment, which is blocks closer than Lee's.

They race there.

Neither of them stumbles.

Much.

By the time they reach her door, they're both winded, and Kara has to lean against the wall for a minute before trying the lock.

"You're out of shape," Lee teases.

Kara glares at him, jamming her key into the lock. "Speak for yourself, old man." The door swings open, and she bows elaborately, then shoves Lee through the threshold.

*

 

Kara eases through the doorway, careful not to disturb their makeshift clothing, and pads back into the bedroom.

"I couldn't find my clothes," Lee says from behind her.

Kara, after an irrational spurt of panic, discards the towel and grabs a robe from her closet. Grabs a second, tosses it back to Lee, then scans the floorboards, just in case he missed something.

No clothes in sight.

She looks up at him, smirks briefly at the length of thigh he still has exposed, and smiles for an altogether different reason at the faint strain of fabric against his shoulders. Before her gaze reaches his eyes, though, she spins on her heel, marches out of the room.

"Maybe they're out here." She stops in the kitchen to set the coffee to brew, Lee walks in the other direction.

"Yeah," he calls out, then the rustling of clothing again. He appears in the kitchen, clad in shorts and a tank top. "They were by the front door. But that means--"

She waves her hand, carelessly. "Couldn't keep your hands off me, could you?"

Lee raises his arms, deliberately, drawing her attention to the scratches again.

Kara rolls her eyes.

*

 

_Lee stumbles from her push, and she catches his arm to steady him. He grabs her waist, yanks, and they end up wrestling on the floor, still laughing. _

After a quick scuffle, she ends up straddling his chest, and after crowing victory, she twists to slam the door shut.

It's a tactical mistake, though, because even as the door closes, Lee bucks and rolls, pinning her arms above her head, using the weight of his body to forestall her abortive attempt to knee him.

"'Old man,' huh?"

Kara bares her teeth, arches her back, but he doesn't budge, only grins.

She takes the only route left, and lunges to bite.

But Lee shifts, and she ends up with her face pressed against the side of his neck.

She turns her head, intending to try another bite, but his skin is warm, and she takes a deep breath. "Gods, you smell good."

Lee pulls back, looks at her, looks_ at her. His grip loosens, his breath catches, and she breaks free, hooks a leg around his knees and rolls him under her._

He doesn't protest, but raises a hand, touches her jaw. "Kara?" The question is almost a whisper, and she doesn't have an answer for him.

So she kisses him instead.

*

 

This might be, Kara thinks, the most awkward morning after she's ever had.

Lee sits across the table from her, gazing into his mug, and she can't stop staring at the scratches, the bite-mark.

She tries not to squirm, but she must have at least twitched, because Lee looks up and catches her staring.

"So."

"So."

"Last night."

Kara stands up abruptly, grabs Lee's mug. "You done with that?" Coffee sloshes her hand.

"No," he says, but he doesn't stop her as she walks to the sink, pours what's left down the drain.

"We were really drunk," she says to the faucet. "Really, really drunk."

There's a long, quiet minute.

"In fact," she continues, "I barely remember a thing."

*

 

_When he thrusts into her, she throws her head back, hitting the wall with a thud. _

"You okay?" Lee mutters, but she doesn't bother to answer, just hikes her leg higher over his hip.

He lifts her other leg, lifting her, pressing her against the wall, and she writhes, moaning.

He thrusts into her twice more, then wobbles on his feet.

Kara braces her arms against the wall, then twines them around his neck. "Bedroom," she directs, and he nods, withdraws, and they sway against each other for a moment.

Then he kisses her, more, again, and they make their way, reaching the bed when Kara backs into it.

They fall, still entangled, and Kara scrabbles at his arms, pulling him up, between, until he's poised over her, plunging into her, and she pulls him even closer, wanting more, more, more.

She presses her heels into the mattress, interspersing moans with kisses, until she can't concentrate on even that anymore, his lips and his tongue, because gods_, it's too much, too much, and even as he groans, bucks raggedly against her, she presses her face against his shoulder to muffle her scream._

*

 

She makes the bed as Lee takes a quick shower. When he emerges, she hands him his clothes, gathered from the floor and folded neatly.

She turns her back as he dresses, but she doesn't leave the room, because that would be silly.

He clears his throat behind her, and she turns and smiles. "So."

"So." He looks around, finds the clock. "I should get going. I'm supposed to--"

"Yeah," she interrupts, "of course."

They lapse into silence, and Kara feels very naked underneath her robe.

"I'll walk you out," she says, and after a brief dance to see who leaves the room first, she beats him to the front door.

"Kara," Lee tries.

"Really, really drunk," she repeats.

He hesitates, nods, and turns away. As he steps out the door, though, he stops and smiles, though he doesn't look at her. "You're playing cards tonight?"

Kara laughs. "You mean winning, right?"

"We'll see." Lee meets her eyes, just for a second, then he's gone.

Kara smiles as she shuts the door gently.

"We'll see."


End file.
